


It’s Bound to Be a Heartbreak Situation

by one_of_those_crushing_scenes



Category: Avengers Academy (Video Game)
Genre: Crushes, Exes, F/F, F/M, Flirting, Fluff, Foursome - F/F/M/M, M/M, Multi, Non-Explicit, OT4, POV Clint Barton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-22 18:44:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13770234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/one_of_those_crushing_scenes/pseuds/one_of_those_crushing_scenes
Summary: Clint Barton shows up at Avengers Academy to find that both of his ex-girlfriends seem to be into the same new guy. And honestly... he can’t blame them.





	It’s Bound to Be a Heartbreak Situation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stars_inthe_sky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stars_inthe_sky/gifts).



> Title is from the song “[Right Kind of Wrong](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwmzOCbFHPA)” by LeAnn Rimes.
> 
> The prompt was, “AVAC, Bobbi solves a case, Clint tags along and is unexpectedly helpful.” I am shit at following instructions—the only thing that this fic has in common with the prompt is that it takes place in Avengers Academy.
> 
> Speaking of which, I love my OTPs, but the fun thing about the timefog and the alternate universe(s?) of AVAC is that everyone’s background is so up in the air, which is why I’m allowing myself to have fun mixing up my usual ships.

Clint Barton arrives at Avengers Academy on a Tuesday.

“You’re going to love it here,” says Janet “Wasp” Van Dyne, the girl showing him around. She’s got honey-brown hair that flips up at the end like someone from the 1960s, and an infectious enthusiasm that makes him truly believe he’s going to love it here, even though he barely knows anything about the place. “We’ve got a ton of amenities, and the other students are awesome. Every day is a new adventure!”

He does love adventure.

After a basic campus tour, she brings him over to a long building which seems to be a gymnasium. Pulling open the door, she motions for him to go inside—and from the inside, it looks like an old warehouse with some sort of fight going on. Scattered around the room are piles of wooden pallets and crates labeled as containing hazardous materials. This gives him pause; what kind of school is this?

Wasp laughs at the concerned look he's giving her and waves it away. “It's just a simulation. See? There's the scoreboard.”

He looks up at the wall where she's pointing, and so there is. The two teams are labeled “AVNG” and “AIM” and each side of the scoreboard has five rows with stats on it for the players out on the court. He surveys the scene, then does a double-take when he realizes that he recognizes— _intimately_ —not one, but two of the players. Bobbi and Natasha are lined up in the back row, moving so fast they’re practically blurred, dishing out attack after attack, punches and kicks and spins that make him dizzy and dry out his mouth—although the latter may be a symptom of something else.

“Go on, have a seat, watch the show,” Wasp says. “I have to take some selfies for extra credit, but meet me in the quad in, say, twenty minutes?”

Clint nods, and she leaves the gym/warehouse, the door closing with a groan behind her.

He takes a seat in the bleachers next to a girl in a blue costume with a lightning bolt down the front, who’s behind a guy with dark spiky hair in some sort of red armor suit. They’re the only spectators, and on the court—aside from bad guys in A.I.M. yellow who he’s assuming must be part of the simulation—Bobbi and Natasha fight behind a guy with some sort of mechanical wings strapped on. The guy has warm brown skin and a goatee trimmed short, he’s wearing a red and white jacket and awesome red goggles, and his wings are honest to goodness lifting him off the ground. Not quite as cool as the best of Clint’s trick arrows, but pretty close.

The girl sitting next to him catches his eye. “Hi! You're Hawkeye! This is so cool, I’m a huge fan. It's such an honor to meet you. I’m Kamala, I mean Ms. Marvel—I stretch!” Her left hand grows to the size of her head as she says the last part, and she looks delighted, as if her powers are new and she's still astonished by them.

She’s heard of him? He has fans?

“Nice to meet you, Kamala,” Clint says. “I’m Clint. When I’m not Hawkeye.”

She beams. “This is Iron Man, also known as Tony Stark,” she says, indicating the other guy next to her. “We were part of the battle, too, but we got knocked out.” She points with her foot to two metallic belts by her feet, which seem to have sensors or a screen or something. He supposes that they’re used for measuring damage. Now that he’s looking, he can see that the three active fighters are wearing the same belt as the ones by Ms. Marvel’s feet.

A flare of some sort bursts out from one of the bad guys and strikes the guy fighting on the court, who falls to the ground and rolls over. Something buzzes loudly, and the health column in the third row on the scoreboard flashes zero before going blank.

“Oh!” the guy says, which relieves Clint—he was worried, the way the guy hit the ground. He stands up and turns to Bobbi and Natasha. “Guess I'm out, ladies. Avenge me, would you?”

Ms. Marvel is talking again, so Clint’s attention is pulled to her. “I’m actually not eighteen,” she admits, “but I lied on the application, and I think Fury might think I’m someone I’m not? But I can handle it, I’m getting better every day and picking up so much from all the other students. It’s amazing to be on a campus with so many superheroes.”

“Well, it seems like you belong here,” Clint says, pointing to the scoreboard up on the wall ahead of them, which shows the amount of damage she dealt before getting knocked out. To be fair, he doesn’t know what the scale is, but 551 seems like a high number. Objectively.

The guy makes his way over to them, undoing his belt and dropping it into the pile with the other two. Clint doesn’t mean to be rude, but now that they’re the only two left in the battle, Bobbi and Natasha seem to have turned it up a notch, and his eyes are glued to the court. He can’t believe how fast they’re moving, the agility and grace combined with a fierce power to make a scene the likes of which he’s never seen before.

“They’re a force of nature, aren’t they?”

Clint looks up; it’s the guy who just got knocked out of the battle. He’s holding an ice pack to his shoulder and giving Clint a knowing look.

“I’m Falcon,” the guy says, sticking out his free hand. Clint takes it, and they shake. “Civilian name’s Sam.”

“Clint,” Clint says. “Or Hawkeye.”

Falcon sits down next to him, on his free side. “The redhead is Black Widow, and that's Mockingbird with the glasses. And yes, they’re both almost too amazing to be true, and even better up close.”

Clint knows this to be true from experience, but he’s getting testy at the idea that this stranger knows it too, although... if both of his ex-girlfriends have moved on (to the same guy?), he probably wouldn’t be doing himself any favors by starting off on the wrong foot with this guy. Which means that brawling is probably out of the question.

“I’m pretty sure I’m the only male on campus that Black Widow can tolerate,” Sam is telling him, “but I’m pretty sure I picked up vibes from Mockingbird, too. I don’t know. No big deal. It’s not like anyone on campus is settling down. We’re still young, right?”

“Not from where I’m sitting!” Ms. Marvel pipes up.

“Yes, thank you, Kamala,” Falcon continues. “So with Mockingbird, both of us have that whole bird theme going on, so I feel like we really get each other. I call her my Bird of a Feather.” He looks over at Clint. “What did you say your superhero name was, again?”

Before he can answer, the buzzer goes off again, and the scoreboard flashes L.E.D. fireworks around the word “VICTORY” in big block letters. The A.I.M. simulations have been completely knocked out, and both girls are almost at peak health.

Natasha and Bobbi walk over with their arms over each other’s shoulders, their eyes shining with the exhilaration of triumph. They don’t notice him, at first.

“Did you see?” Bobbi says to Falcon. “We slaughtered them.”

Natasha uses her arm to pull Bobbi closer to her, which has the effect of putting Bobbi’s face right in front of Natasha’s armpit. Bobbi scrunches up her nose, laughs, and pulls her head back.

“Vengeance is sweet,” Natasha declares.

“You were on fire,” Falcon responds. “Couldn’t take my eyes off either of you. Ladies, this is—”

The bubble Clint's been working on with his chewing gum pops loudly; his ex-girlfriends look up and see him. The two of them slide their arms off each other's shoulders and squeeze hands at the same time, taking a step back. “ _Clint_?”

 

“You’ll be with Captain America,” Wasp says, pointing to a bare twin bed. Clint sets his suitcase down at the foot of it. “A.K.A. Steve. You wouldn’t have seen him yet. He’s training right now, but he only has two hours and twenty-six minutes left, so you’ll get to meet him soon.”

He hears a familiar voice coming from the end of the hallway, and his feet take him in the direction of the voice without any input from his brain. When he reaches the door where the voice is coming from, he peeks in—and again, it’s both of them. Bobbi and Natasha are laughing, talking over each other about today’s training session and how they’d lost sense of each other for a split second and one of them had almost kicked the other in the head. Not that he’d noticed, but then, he hadn’t been around for the whole thing.

Natasha notices him standing there, nods at him. “Hey, new neighbor.”

That’s when he notices the handwritten sign on the door, script writing on yellow construction paper.

He looks back and forth between the two of them. “You two are roommates?”

 

 

He settles in quickly. His roommate is a weird combination of self-important and humble, which grates Clint’s nerves, but he’s a good guy when it comes down to it. He even manages to catch some one-on-one flirting with his exes, without the new guy around. Bobbi crosses her arms at him and tells him that the reason they broke up was that his place always smelled like pizza, but he knows that’s bull—she likes pizza just fine. He suspects that the real reason is that she’s just as emotionally stunted as he is, and she cut and run once things got serious.

Instead of talking about his feelings, he orders a pizza with extra cheese to the girls’ dorm room one evening while Nat is out solving a mystery. Bobbi marches the box over to his room and calls him a “puerile birdbrain who shouldn't be allowed access to a phone,” and they end up finishing the pizza between the two of them and playing video games until two in the morning. He falls asleep with his head in her lap while she shoots Skrulls onscreen, and he wakes up in his bed, tucked in up to his chin.

 

 

“What is that, homework?” Clint asks.

Sam looks up from the screen, presses a button on the keyboard to pause the video, and pulls an earbud out of his ear. “Yeah. I’m learning bird calls. It’s pretty interesting, actually—once you get to recognize them, you really see how each bird’s sound is perfect for its species.”

In his old school, Clint would have been called a geek for being interested in this sort of thing. He wouldn't have been bullied physically, because he knew how to handle himself in a fight, but he would have received a steady stream of anonymous messages through different social media platforms, telling him to kill himself and that no one would miss him. He learned at a young age to pretend that he didn’t care about learning, that he was a dumb jock who could barely read.

He’s really starting to like Avengers Academy.

Sam holds out his free earbud. “Want to listen?” When Clint hesitates, he smacks himself in the forehead and says, “I’m such an idiot. Uh, how can you...?”

“I’ve got my own,” Clint says, swinging his backpack around and opening the front pocket to pull out his headphones, a (purple) on-ear set with cups that are big and soft enough to fit comfortably over his hearing aids. “I can’t exactly share with these, sorry.”

“No problem, I’ve already studied this a thousand times.” Sam gives him an easy grin and pulls the base of his earphones out of the jack, then holds out his hand for Clint, who gives him the cord of his headphones. Their hands brush. It’s no big deal. It’s not as if he’s never felt that spark before from inadvertent hand contact with another man. Although, it is the first time that other man has been the guy that both of his ex-girlfriends are currently crushing on.

It’s no big deal.

 

 

Jan invites Clint out dancing one night, and when they see Natasha there on her own, she suddenly remembers that she has a huge homework assignment due the next day. 

“So sorry!” Jan says, putting on her jacket. “You'll keep him company, right, Black Widow? I'm totally going to fail out of school if I don't—” and then she shrinks and is gone, sentence unfinished.

Natasha raises an eyebrow at him, but she doesn't stop swaying.

His face turns red. “Hey. Uh, how's it going?” 

“Oh, just partaking in the literal minimum amount of social interaction needed in order to make sure that Jan and Loki don't drag me down here by my ankles.”

“Oh, you’re here because you have to be,” Clint says sarcastically, teasing her. “You don't get _any_ enjoyment out of it. You're just shaking your hips like that because... you're afraid that people who aren't even in the room will find out if you stop?”

“Well, if I'm here anyway, I can't just stand off to the side. I need to blend in. I'm a spy, Clinton.”

He smirks. “Don't tell me you're just pretending to have fun; I know you a little better than that.”

A small smile crosses her lips, but she doesn't answer.

“Come on, dance with me, Tasha,” he says, moving in close. She gives an exaggerated, put-upon sigh, and wraps her arms around his neck, the rest of their bodies not quite touching, but close enough for him to feel warm all over.

After two or three songs, she starts to relax into the rhythm, and he’s having a great time, until he notices that she keeps looking over his shoulder. He sneaks a look and notices that Sam is at the pool table, leaning over to line up a shot. And he can’t even blame her for staring—Sam’s butt looks really, really good.

 

 

Clint spots Sam walking into the robo dojo just as Bobbi walks out. She’s all sweaty and flushed, and her glasses are fogged over, so he offers to clean them for her.

“Thanks,” she says, handing them over.

He breathes onto the lenses and rubs them gently with his T-shirt while he watches Sam prepare to fight the robots. Sam takes off his jacket and hangs it over the fence, then stretches his arms over his head, and Clint is distracted by nicely-defined biceps for a second.

“Hey, I want to ogle, too,” Bobbi complains.

He hands her back the glasses. “Why don’t you get contact lenses?”

She winces. “Bad experience with them when I was still starting out. The glasses stay on my face and they’re flexible enough not to break even if they fall off. I’m happy with them.”

“Yeah, but when they get fogged up, you can’t check out the hot boys,” he says with a wink.

She raises her eyebrows at him, leans casually against the fence, and retorts, “I can if I’m standing close enough.”

A robot flies into the wall right where she’s standing, knocking her to the ground.

 

 

When his hearing aids stop working, he shuts himself in his dorm room and pretends to be sick so that no one will notice. It’s not exactly an ingenious long-term plan, and Natasha sees right through it. She tries to help him out, but the last thing he wants is her pity, and his stubbornness almost ruins any remnants of affection that she has for him.

Somehow, and he’s not exactly sure how, it all works out for the best: Not only does Tony make him a new and improved set of hearing aids, but Natasha admits to caring about him and agrees to team up with him and join him on missions once in a while. He doesn’t know how he swung that one, but he’s extremely grateful.

 

 

“I wish I could help you with your love triangle, I really do,” Jan says. “It's just that, at the moment, I'm a little busy trying to get Captain America and Iron Man to realize that they're in love with each other. Also, I am way too scared of Black Widow to go anywhere near her love life.”

Clint pouts. “It's more like a love square, and how do they not already know that they're in love with each other? I've only been here for four days, and I know. And I've been called obtuse many, many times. Also, her bark is worse than her bite.”

“Oh, sure, that's exactly what spiders are known for.” She crosses her arms and gives him a side-eye.

“Jan, please,” he says, bringing his hands together and holding them out to her.

“Clint, be a big boy and solve your own geometry problems,” Jan responds and closes the door to her room.

 

 

“I need someone to ride with me for my sky-cycle session,” Bobbi says to him. “The ones they have here are built for two, and the balance isn’t quite right if one person tries it alone.”

“That’s nice,” Clint says, playing hard to get.

He was the one who taught her how to ride a sky-cycle in the first place, back when they were dating, when it was fresh and new between them, their days filled with adrenaline and laughter. He really wants to go sky-cycle riding with her right now.

He doesn’t know what he wants.

 

 

One afternoon, he finds them next to the hangar, arguing animatedly with each other, hands on their hips, faces red, pointing and gesturing angrily.

“What’s going on?” he asks Sam, who’s also watching the scene.

“They both have an assignment to complete a solo mission,” Sam says. “So they’re arguing over who gets to go first.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” Natasha says to Bobbi. “Let me go. Mine will only take fifteen minutes and then you can do yours.”

Bobbi holds up her hand. “No, that's worse, because then I have to wait around for those fifteen minutes and I can't do anything else in the meantime. If I take the quinjet, you can go do something else, and by the time you're done, I'll be back, and you can go on your mission.”

Natasha makes a move with her hands like she’s just barely holding back from strangling her best friend. “That’s completely inefficient! If I go now and you wait, both missions will be finished more quickly!”

“Maybe, but if I go now and you find something else to do while I’m out, it’ll _feel_ quicker.”

“‘ _Feel_ quicker’—how gullible do you think I am?” 

Clint cuts in, Sam’s hand on his arm too slow to stop him. “Why don't you just go together and do both?”

The conversation stops.

Slowly, the girls swivel, perfectly in sync with each other. They turn to him with their hands on their hips, and that can't be a good sign.

“Clint,” Bobbi says, in a tone of voice like she’s speaking to an idiot.

“Do you not know what the word ‘solo’ means?” Natasha continues.

“You can't have _two_ people on a solo mission.” Bobbi shakes her head.

Natasha looks at Bobbi, rolling her eyes. “He doesn't know anything.”

“He knows _nothing_ ,” Bobbi agrees.

 

 

“I can’t believe we haven’t done this sooner,” Sam says, grabbing Clint by the scruff of his neck and pulling him in while leaning back against the wall.

“I know,” Clint agrees. He pulls Sam’s jacket off his arms, trapping his hands, and leans into the crook of his neck, nipping him right on the collarbone. “We were— _ahhhh_ —” as Sam presses their pelvises together, “—not doing a great job of—oh, God—thinking outside the box.”

“You think they forgot we’re here?” Bobbi asks Natasha, behind his back.

“C’mere,” Clint says, reaching behind him and grabbing a shirt, any shirt. He turns around, and it’s Bobbi, her eyes glittering with excitement. He snaps his gum and grins. “You’ve got a smart mouth.”

She wets her lips with her tongue. “Yeah, I do.”

“I’ve got a smart mouth, too.”

He can see her pupils dilating, the black of her eyes almost overtaking the blue.

“You’re going to want to get on the bed,” he tells her. “Clothes off.” Thinking better of it, he adds, “Leave the knee socks on. And the sneakers.”

“Aww, _yes_ ,” Sam agrees.

Bobbi follows his instructions, and then Clint gets onto his knees, blows a pink bubble the size of a baseball, then takes the gum out of his mouth and sticks it onto the bottom of Bobbi's shoe.

“Ms. Romanoff.” Sam's voice is smooth as silk. “Aren't you a little hot in all that clothing?”

“You tell me,” Clint hears her saying. He feels the bed bounce as they fall into it, and he hears soft panting surrounding him from all sides.

Later, Tony comes up from behind him in the quad and says, “Dude, you've got used gum on the back of your shirt. First of all, gross. Second of all, how does that even happen?”


End file.
